Chien-Shiung Wu received her bachelor's degree from National Central University in Nanjing in 1936 and her doctorate from Berkeley in 1940. She taught at Smith College and Princeton University. During World War II she joined the Manhattan Project, helping to develop the atomic bomb. After the war she became a full professor at Columbia. She was the first woman elected president of the American Physical Society and to receive the Cyrus B. Comstock Award of the National Academy of Sciences. She also received the National Medal of Science, the United States' highest award in scientific achievement.